Books in Heat

Of Fads and Redemption

My reviews are up of two recently published books that deal with two characteristically American ideas. The favorite theme of American success stories, from Emerson to Oprah, from slave narratives to self-help books, is described in The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By, by Don P. McAdams.

In Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads, Joel Best analyzes institutional fads, and why we run around in Quality Circles before embracing Six Sigma. A slightly different version of this review appears in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

McAdams shows that redemption is not a fad, because it is a perennial feature of the stories Americans construct about their lives, or at least the lives they hope to have, and the lives they admire. But it's interesting to speculate how institutional fads are themselves attempts at redemption---each one worshipped for redeeming the mistakes of the past, before being found wanting, as we anxiously await the next new best-selling redeemer, who is never long in coming.